President Joe Biden's administration has made mistakes on immigration policy, but not the ones its critics think. Recent actions, including a parole program for individuals from four countries, are promising and can help overcome the administration's twin errors: failing to frame the situation at the border as a refugee crisis and continuing some of former President Donald Trump's enforcement policies at the border.
The United States is experiencing a historic refugee crisis in the Western Hemisphere that has been cast as a "border crisis." An unprecedented economic collapse and widespread human rights violations caused more than 7.1 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants to leave their country since 2015, with many barely surviving and going to places other than the United States. Nearly 2 million Venezuelans have gone to Colombia and 1.3 million to Peru. Cubans and Nicaraguans have also fled their authoritarian governments in large numbers, and violent gangs are terrorizing Haitians.
